June 2, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



919 



But, again, it is curious to find nursery-grown and self- 

 sown plants declared to be equally good. In both cases, 

 but especially in that of self-sown plants, we should 

 think that careful selection was important. At one 

 time, wc suspect, a good many small and weakly 

 plants were put out into the field and never became 

 good trees. " Very few have succeeded in making 

 cinchona grow where it has died before," sounds 

 something like a bull. We all know what is meant : 

 that where an original planting of cinchona has died 

 out, neither draining nor trenching nor any other 

 ordinary expedient has been successful in inducing 

 further plantings to grow. Planters, in their loss and 

 disappointment, have felt inclined to exclaim 



" Something ails it now, the place is curst." 

 Our own belief is that tlie fault in such cases 

 generally lies with sour, damp, stiff subsoil, or sub- 

 soil which is damp and stiff witliout being sour. 

 Could the planter afford not only to drain and trench 

 his stiflf soil, but to leave it fallow until well-aerated, 

 sweetened and pulverized, success might probably 

 crown his efforts. It must not be forgotten, how- 

 ever, that in the Andean habitat of the cinchonas, 

 they are not found in uniform forests of any great 

 extent, but only in patches often widely-separated. 

 The cinchona is not a plant that will grow in any 

 kind of soil, and experience in Ceylon seems to prove 

 that not richness so much as freeuess of soil is desider- 

 ated. The plant grows well frequently in gravelly 

 soil. But experience gained on Abbotsford goes far 

 to show, that, even where a first planting of cinchonas 

 has died off, in from the third to the fifth year, and 

 tea has been substituted, the draining and opening 

 powers of the new plant witli the strong tap root 

 so alters the character of the soil, that cinchona plants 

 interspersed amongst the tea are likely to flourish. 

 There has not been time enough yet, perhaps, to 

 set the question at rest beyond doubt, but all tlic 

 signs are encouraging. If the cinchonas are not planted 

 too thickly, we should think they would benefit the 

 tea by their shelter rather than harm it by what 

 they extract from the soil. Of course, in such cases, 

 lopping off the side branches up to a certain height 

 is essential. But this lopping (two branches at a time 

 best), with forking of the soil and the application of 

 manure, are amongst the requisites of good culture 

 " generally approved of as stimulating the trees," 

 amongst the Dimbula planters. We should attribute 

 much more than stinmlation of growth to the ap- 

 plication of "bulky manure," meaning chiefly cow- 

 dung, which is highly ammoniacal. From the applic- 

 ation of such manures, Brougliton obtained greatly 

 increased proportions of alkaloids in the bark, and 

 there can be little doubt that much of the high 

 character of Ceylon bark from the very first was due 

 to the fact that the cinchona trees were grown 

 amongst coffee and received a large portion of the 

 benefit of the manure applied to the chief cultiv- 

 ation. As a general rule, the amount of alkaloids 

 increases with age and elevation ; but if trees at 

 comparatively low elevations could be heavily man- 

 ured with such substances as guano, there can be 

 little doubt the disparity would be largely lessened. 

 We do not think any reliable results have yet been 

 published of the comparati\e alkaloidal richness of 

 the bark of an appreciable number of trees grown 

 in precisely tlie same favourable circumstances of 

 soil, altitude and climate but half of them left to 

 the influence of soil, climate and tillage, while the 

 Other half were heavily manured. Of the benefit of 

 manure iu regard to growth of tree and richness of 

 bark, there can be no doubt, but, in these latter 

 days especially, the question "Will it pay?" pre- 

 sents itself in this as in other cases. 



There cau be no doubt that premature flowering 

 and seeding indicate that either the plants are faulty 



or that the conditions of soil or climate, or of both, 

 are not conducive longevity. The inatinet of reproduc- 

 tion is forced into preternatural activity by circum- 

 stances endangering health or life. We well recollect 

 feeling alarm on thia account early in the history of 

 the enterprize, when officinalis plants at two years 

 in the field broke out into blossom which was suc- 

 ceeded by fruit. And just in proportion to tendency 

 to premature blossoming was the tendency to early 

 dying off in thia species. Suocirubras, except in rare 

 instances, took six or seven years to blossom, and we 

 believe there are trees, or were in Uva, which had 

 not blossomed in their seventeenth year. The superiority 

 of the hybrid, cinchona robuata, to officinalis, its 

 female parent, is shown, not only iu its more vigor- 

 ous growth, but in its later blossoming. There cau be 

 no doubt, that, where trees are not grown expressly 

 for seed, the cutting away of the seed or blossom 

 branches must be beneficial to the trees, much of 

 whose strength must be thrown into such enormous 

 crops of aeed as some trees, especially officinalis, bear. 

 There seems only a slight inclination to believe that trees 

 from foreign aeed (India or Java) are lea. liable to canker 

 than those grown from local seed ; but our readera 

 will observe, that, in view of belief in the degeneracy 

 of the plant, fresh introductions of aeed from it« 

 native habitat are recommended. Such aeed ought, of 

 course, to be obtained from well-grown and specially 

 healthy tress in the forests, and not from those grown 

 on the plantations which have been established in 

 Bolivia and other places. We cannot forget, however, 

 that Ceylon cincljoua seed was recently carried to 

 America to be the origin of cinchoua plantatious ! 

 Generally, no treatment has been found etficaoioua in 

 stopping " canker " when once it bad set in ; but 

 baring the collar of the plant, as suggested by Mr. 

 Nock, has been found useful as a preventive. There 

 is a difference of opinion as to whether the shaving 

 process doea or does not increase t)ie tendency to 

 seed-hearing, but certainly it is natural to infer that 

 anything which gives a shock to the vitality of the 

 tree (provided the shock is not fatal) would increaie 

 the tendency. In harvesting, shaving was almost 

 universally apijroved of : the process to be commenced 

 at three years old, repeated twice again between 5i 

 and 6 years old, when the trees ought to be coppiced 

 and three suckers all" wed to grow up. 



We have reason to believe that one of the gentlemen 

 who signed the report has now altered hie opinion in 

 favour of shaving, preferring Molvor's stripping process. 

 In that process, only strips of bark were taken, 

 generally three, equal breadths being left on. The 

 mistake in shaving seems to have been to have shaved 

 all round, but this practice has, we believe, been 

 abandoned. If the shaving process continued to answer 

 and if covering (which is "almost generally ap. 

 proved of") could be dispensed with, it would be 

 the simplest and cheapest mode of harvesting the 

 bark ; but besides the danger of baring the trees too 

 much and the damage done by inclement seasons, it 

 seems settled, that, while the alkaloids increase at the 

 second or even iu some ca^es the third shaving, 

 they then seriously fall off. The bark increases be- 

 tween the shavings, — sometimes largely. It is curious 

 that the Committee indicated no definite periods 

 between shavings, but we supposp, if the first shaving 

 took place in the tliird year, two more, at intervals 

 of eight mouths would follow, which would bring 

 the tree to its fifth year. Then, at some period from 

 5J to years old, the tree would be coppiced and the 

 renewed bark on it harvested. It will be observed 

 that the amount of sulphate of quinine in original 

 Buccirubra bark is considerably iu excess of that from 

 officinalis (which surprises us) but that renewed 

 officinalis bark ia much richer tlian renewed red bark. 

 The yield of auceirubra bark (in shaving we, presume) 



